Scammers or not

In some cases, the phony female profiles are put up by the company itself, in order to get more male subscribers interested in the app.

This was found to be the case for Yahoo Personals and for that infamous site for married people looking for affairs, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Edit: Ashley Madison

There probably are legitimate dating companies who do try to ensure their users are honest, but I would not use any Internet or telephone-based dating-agency anyway.

Really the only safeguard is your own judgment and common-sense, as in the old "Looks to good to be true" maxim, responses from too far away to be realistic, and requests for money.

Some of them have chatbots. I was reading (not on the web) that the Ashley Madison site had a minmal number of real female members, but it was absolutely swarming with 'female' chatbots. This situation will probably get worse as time goes on and chatbots get more 'credible'. I have actually met real people through dating sites, but not recently.

I wouldn't trust the free dating sites

@Ranman i think you are right there is a lot of dodgy people around ready too try and scam you and take advantage for something. and i think you should be cautious and suspicious until you see there is no hidden agenda on there part

i wouldn't trust them nowadays, like the previous user mentioned they are full of AI, fake accounts and chatbots, its a sad state of affairs for genuine people who want to find love.

Probably, but no more legit than the bored housewife sitting on the next bar stool giggling at your flirty repartee between sips of drinks you've been buying her.

The Russian bots on social networks got a lot of their English skills on the dating sites.
It’s been like this from the beginning.

I would say that at least 75% are fake profiles.

Nope, they only exist to get men to pay $$$$$$